Field of the Invention
This invention concerns a drug for treating memory disturbances, for example those caused by drugs such as benzodiazepines, for example diazepam, cholinolytics, for example scopolamine, or by electric shock treatments. The treatment is accomplished by repeated administration of arginine aspartate.
Arginine aspartate is a known product that was described in France in the special drug patents No. 1625 M and 106 CAM on Sept. 15, 1961 and Dec. 21, 1964, and in French Patent 2568124 of July 24, 1984. This product is the salt resulting from the reaction of equimolecular quantities of L-aspartic acid and L-arginine; the compound has the formula ##STR1##
The physiological effects and a probable method of action of this product were described in these documents, which make therapeutic use of it in
hyperammonemic conditions, PA1 mental and physical asthenia, PA1 and certain retardations of growth.
It has now been found surprisingly that this aspartate, when it is used orally, can be useful in certain memory disturbances. Up to now, among all of the pharmacological actions of arginine aspartate that are presently known, or of any other salt of arginine, none could suggest such a possibility. Furthermore, no bibliographic search made on the various salts of arginine or of aspartic acid suggests such possible activity.
Benzodiazepines and scopolamine are very widely used drugs, but they frequently involve a loss of memory: GOODMAN and GILMAN, The pharmacological basis of therapeutics, 7th Edition, pages 341-342, 133.
Electroshocks are therapy that is very useful in the treatment of patients afflicted with serious psychosis and major personality disturbances. Nevertheless, electroshock therapy has major secondary effects, memory disturbances, although the methods of application currently used have somewhat less severe side effects. For a review of electroshock therapy, refer to the article by SELVIN-B-L, Electroconvulsive therapy, 1987, Anesthesiology, 1987, 67, 367-385.
It has now been shown that arginine aspartate used orally greatly reduces the loss of memory in various models of amnesia induced in the mouse or the rat.